The Comparative Effect of Keeping a Vocabulary Notebook with Definitions and a Vocabulary Notebook with Pictures on Extrovert and Introvert EFL Learners Vocabulary Retention

This study attempted to investigate the comparative effect of two different types of a vocabulary learning strategy, "vocabulary notebooks with definitions" and "vocabulary notebooks with pictures", on the vocabulary retention of extrovert and introvert EFL learners. To begin with, a group of 180 students took the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) from among 160 students were selected to take a piloted sample Proficiency Test of Key English Testing (KET) as a proficiency test to select homogeneous participants in terms of their English proficiency level. After that, 60 introvert and 60 extrovert students were selected to compromise the participants of the study. Each of these groups was divided into two classes with 30 participants (totally 4 classes). One extrovert and one introvert classes were going to implement the vocabulary notebooks with definitions and the other extrovert and introvert classes were going to implement vocabulary notebooks with pictures. Prior to the instruction, a piloted researcher-made vocabulary pretest was administered. After teaching the vocabularies in class, for homework the students used their vocabulary notebooks. Students in this group were to make notebooks to write just vocabulary definitions and use them in meaningful contexts. In case of the two other classes, the participants were to make the wordsʹ definitions visualized by paintings or cutting pictures from different sources and glue them in their notebooks. Two weeks after the end of the instruction, a piloted researcher-made post-test was administered to investigate the participantsʹ retention of vocabularies. The outcome reveals that: There is a significant difference between the effect of keeping a vocabulary note book with definitions and a vocabulary notebook with pictures on extrovert EFL learnersʹ vocabulary retention. The extrovert students keeping note books with pictures outperformed the extrovert students keeping note books with definitions on the post-test of vocabulary retention.